It is difficult to attach lifting lines to a towed body while the towed body is alongside a "mother" ship (see FIG. 1). It is considered quite difficult and dangerous for men to reach over the side with grapples and try to put lines on the towed body, particularly when the mother ship is much larger than the towed body.
One conventional way of attaching lines to the towed body is to leave "pigtails" trailing from the towed body. These pigtails are captured using poles and brought onboard the mother ship for attachment to lift lines. However, this procedure may be very cumbersome for recovering, for example, from a 300-foot long mother ship, a seismic subarray which may be up to 60 feet long, weigh up to 25,000 pounds, and have attached gear such as seismic guns and umbilical cables which are subject to entanglement. Accordingly, considering both the size, unwieldy dimensions and motion of a seismic subarray, it is desirable to have a recovery system which avoids the manifest problems of the art.
Applicant is not aware of any prior art references which, in his judgment as one skilled in the art of towing seismic subarrays, would anticipate or render obvious the novel recovery method and apparatus of the instant invention.